Regarding question 1: A static IP is sufficient, but I think not required. An alternative is to use dynamic DNS.
Regarding question 2: You're probably right. But using up-to-date software, having strong community support, and, perhaps even better, using cleanly written (e.g., https://github.com/mirleft/ocaml-tls) or even formally verified software could help. On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 3:36 PM, Jim Garrett <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > This is my first post to this group. I've been using GNU/Linux for about > 15 years but attending LibrePlanet last month brought me to understand the > full implications of Free Software. I was expecting more technical talks, > but was pleasantly surprised that the humane implications of Free Software > were prominently visible. I was particularly struck by the session on Gnu > Health and two regarding libraries (Alison Macrina's and Jennie Rose > Halperin's, the latter in the context of cultural heritage organizations, > libraries being the most common). > > As a side note, the library presentations made clear that librarians live > at the intersection of information and freedom every day. Our values > overlap substantially, and they could be valuable allies, even though > individual librarians may or may not be computationally sophisticated. > Befriend your local librarian today! > > But I have a specific question. I'd love to use Friendica and other Free > social-network software, and invite my friends and relatives to join, but I > feel I should set up my own server to support this. I know there are nodes > available, but I'd like to take responsibility if I'm inviting others to > join me. Furthermore, if we imagine a world where Free social networking > predominates, it's a world in which lots of people are running their own > servers. But servers need to be on all the time. So I'm imagining lots of > people running low-wattage small servers, such as Raspberry Pi's (or other > systems-on-a-chip) to support Free social networking. > > However, I'm not an experienced system admin, and this world I envision > involves people who are also not experienced sys-admins running servers. > Hence a few questions: > > 1. Am I correct in thinking that running a server for this purpose > requires a static IP address? > 2. Lots of inexperienced people running servers sounds like a > large-scale security disaster waiting to happen. Is there any way this > could be managed? > > Thanks in advance, > > Jim Garrett >
